Luciano: Henry native and WWII sub commander 'gallantly gave his life for his country'

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Nov 30, 2013 at 1:30 PM

In late 1943, Capt. John Philip Cromwell had to make a quick, daring choice that would affect many lives, including his own.

In late 1943, Capt. John Philip Cromwell had to make a quick, daring choice that would affect many lives, including his own.

With his submarine a sitting duck for an attacking enemy, he could abandon ship and join his flailing crew as soon-to-be prisoners of war. But his mates were unaware that there was more than life-or-death concerns pounding inside Cromwell's head.

He had two secrets, big ones — information that could turn the tide of World War II. In the hands of Japanese interrogators — and persuaded by drugs and torture — Cromwell's lips might slip.

He could save his skin or go down with the ship. That pivotal decision 70 years ago earned Cromwell the Medal of Honor — the military's highest award — for valor in the Pacific Theater, a world away from his childhood home in Henry, Ill.

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What would make a small-town boy, raised amid Midwestern crop fields, rush to join the Navy?

Thirty miles north of Peoria, Henry sits alongside the Illinois River. But that waterway is a far cry from the vast ocean, something the elder Cromwell never saw in his youth. Yet those far-flung waves called to Cromwell, for reasons lost to time.

"I have no idea," says John Philip Cromwell Jr., 85, of San Diego. "It's something I would've wanted to ask him."

Born Sept. 11, 1901, the elder Cromwell was raised with an older sister, Dorothy, and younger brother, Fred. His mother, Grace, ran the household, while father Edward — like his father before him — served as town doctor. But that tradition ended with Cromwell.

"I don't know why he didn't go to medical school," his son says. "Maybe he was rebellious."

If so, call it patriotic rebellion. After graduating from high school, Cromwell left Henry for a military-preparatory school in Mississippi. In 1920, he was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating four years later. His next two decades would include a battleship tour and submarine, plus assignments in Washington and the high seas. In 1941 as lieutenant commander, he served as engineer officer for the Pacific Fleet submarine force. Over the next two years, he commanded three submarine divisions there.

Following promotion to captain, he went to sea aboard the USS Sculpin. On Nov. 5, 1943, the sub left Pearl Harbor on war patrol, under the helm of Lt. Cmdr. Fred Connaway. But, depending on whatever military action might ensue, Cromwell could call for the formation of a wolfpack with two other nearby subs under his command.

But there was more to Cromwell's presence as the sub slid westerly through the Pacific.

For one, he knew that Navy cryptologists had cracked the Japanese naval code. The discovery had been a major factor in the American underdog victory at the Battle of Midway the previous year. Further, the decoded messages were invaluable in helping subs (like the Sculpin) slip past Japanese convoys.

Plus, Cromwell also was privy to Operation Galvanic. After a successful campaign in the Solomon Islands, the U.S. fleet aimed to invade the Gilbert Island, about 1,300 miles from Hawaii in the Central Pacific. According to the plan, U.S. Marines would take Tarawa and Makin Islands on Nov. 20, with the help of support craft. Among them were to be a dozen subs, including the Sculpin.

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On the night of Nov. 18, radar showed a high-speed convoy approaching the Sculpin. The sub made a surface run to get far ahead of the enemy warcraft, then prepare for attack.

However, with dawn breaking, the Japanese convoy spotted the Sculpin periscope, prompting Lt. Cmdr. Connaway to take the sub down deep and let the ships pass by overhead. Later, Connaway ordered the sub to surface to attack from arrears. Yet the Japanese destroyer IJS Yamagumo had lagged behind, in search of the Sculpin. When the sub dived again, the destroyer dropped depth charges that damaged the Sculpin's depth gauge. But, unaware of the equipment breach, the crew waited for hours as the Sculpin laid low.

About noon, Connaway ordered the sub to rise to periscope depth, seeking another opportunity to attack. But the broken depth gauge was stuck at 125 feet, allowing the sub to surface in full view of the Yamagumo. As the Sculpin dived again, the destroyer dropped 18 depth charges, severely damaging the sub. With the hull leaking and the Sculpin taking on water, a second Japanese attack caused more damage.

Connaway, trying to save his crew, ordered the sub to the surface to fight it out with deck guns. The mismatch was a massacre. The Yamagumo's first blast blew apart a conning tower, killing the bridge watch team, including Connaway and his executive and gunnery officers. The ship's surviving senior officer, a reserve lieutenant, ordered the scuttled sub's crew to abandon ship.

Cromwell faced a crisis, with two choices. He could join the crew and end up in enemy hands. But as a naval captain, he surely would be targeted by torture and drugs by his captors. That would mean a possible compromise regarding his knowledge of the broken code and Operation Galvanic.

"I can't go with you," he told his mates. He added nothing more as three officers and 39 crewman jumped into the sea, says James Hafele, former commander of the Peoria unit of the U.S. Submarine Veterans.

Cromwell refused to leave the scuttled sub. It plunged downward with 11 others in her belly. Ten likely were either dead or dying. The 11th was an ensign who blamed himself for the gauge misinformation. He was last seen playing solitaire as the sub went down.

"He wasn't going to face the world after what happened to the sub," Hafele says.

Ocean pressure likely crushed the sub at about 1,000 feet, minutes after submerging, Hafele says. But Cromwell and the rest probably drowned.

"It's a hell of a way to die," says Hafele, who served on a Naval submarine in the 1950s. "I don't know if there's a good way to die. But that's a bad one."

Regardless, Cromwell's secrets were safe forever. And his heroic story almost went down with him.

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For two years, Cromwell's family, which last saw him in late 1942, hoped for his survival. Meanwhile, the Navy figured the Sculpin had been lost at sea.

After the sub went down, the Japanese pulled the 42 survivors from the sea, but threw one back because of severe injuries. The 41 sailors were taken to Truk Island and — just as Cromwell feared — were interrogated for 10 days by Japanese intelligence officers. Then, the group was divided for transport to Japan — 21 on IJS Chuyo and 20 on IJS Unyo.

On Dec. 3, 1943, the Chuyo was attacked by the USS Sailfish.

(In 1939, the Sailfish — then dubbed the Squalus — sank during exercises off New Hampshire, with the crew rescued by none other than the Sculpin. The Squalus was raised and refurbished, then renamed the Sailfish.)

The Chuyo sank quickly. Only one member of the Sculpin survived.

Meantime, the Unyo arrived in Japan. The Sculpin crew spent the rest of the war working in the Ashio copper mines, after which they were repatriated to America and told their story — and revealed Cromwell's heroics.

News of Cromwell's death finally reached his family. His wife passed out, in front of Cromwell's son, prompting him to vow to be strong for his mother. He would go on to follow his father into a Navy career, commanding a destroyer off Korea and overseeing mine-sweeping operations during the Vietnam War.

Cromwell Jr. says he often has pondered his father's dying thoughts as the sub dropped to its doom. He thinks of the Naval Academy's Memorial Hall, where a replica of a flag flown by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry during The War of 1812 hangs. The flag reflects the dying words of his friend, Capt. James Lawrence, who told his charges on the USS Chesapeake, "Don't give up the ship."

Cromwell Jr., his voice creaking with emotion, says, "When you're sworn in to the Naval Academy, you're sworn in in front of that flag. It means a lot. It's sort of bred into you."

Cromwell was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. A copy of the text of that honor accompanies a memorial, 2,000-pound torpedo in Henry's Central Park. Every Sept. 11, the Submarine Veterans hold a ceremony there to remember the 2001 terrorists attacks, along with Cromwell's birthday a century earlier.

The citation concludes, "His great moral courage in the face of certain death adds new luster to the traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country."

Some information for this story was taken from www.history.navy.mil and "Submarine Hero," by Edward C. Whitman, published in Undersea Warfare magazine, Summer 2000.

PHIL LUCIANO is a Journal Star columnist. He can be reached at pluciano@pjstar.com, facebook.com/philluciano, 686-3155 or (800) 225- 5757, Ext. 3155. Follow him on Twitter @LucianoPhil.

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